Coach Herb Gross is anxious to see how his Trinity Lutheran softball team is going to perform this spring, and he will get that chance at 5:30 o’clock today when the Cougars host Madison.

Gross takes over the head coaching position from Bob Tabeling, who he assisted the past five seasons.

One of the girls he is counting on is Grace Lance, a junior left-handed pitcher.

She was named co-most valuable player of the Cougars in the spring of 2023 when she set the school record for wins with 15. She also threw 161 innings, had 191 strikeouts and was named to the Class 1A Rising Sun all-sectional team.

Lance batted .311 and had 23 hits, scored 25 runs and had 22 RBIs.

“Pitching will be one of our strengths for sure,” Gross said. “This will be her third season starting for us. She throws smoke. She can bring it and her control has been getting better and better. When she mixes in a few off-speed pitches, she is going to be dangerous.”

Cami Keaton also will spend some time pitching. Maddie Adams will be the regular catcher with Olivia Cain as her backup.

Dianna Munoz returns at first base, Laura Roeder is back at second base, and a pair of freshmen will be on the left side of the infield with Zoey Dulaney at shortstop and Addi Burcham at third base.

“Defense will definitely be our strong point,” Gross said.

Sophomore infielder Rowan Sharp was named the Cougars’ most improved player last season.

Starting in left field will be Morgan Brewer within Cain in right and Emerson Warren will be in center.

Dulaney will bat leadoff, and Gross said, “She has speed and can get on base pretty well. Lance will be up there as well, then we’ll have Morgan and Dianna to knock them in hopefully. Addison Keaton will probably be our cleanup batter.”

Gross is looking for more production from the lower half of the lineup.

“I’m going to mix up the lineup,” he said. “One of our better hitters will be our seventh hitter just for that reason.

“I think our offense will be slow at start. The girls are coming around. Their timing has been off, but we’ve been working a lot on hitting. A couple of games in I think we’re going to figure it out, and I think we’re going to surprise some people.

Gross said he expects Addison Keaton, Burcham, Brewer and Munoz to be the Cougar’s power hitters.

He said he hopes the Cougars can top the 15 wins they had last year.

“We want to win the sectional and move on to the regional and even further. We have Rising Sun in our sectional and they are really good team — a ranked team,” Gross said. “We’ll have our hands full, but if we play together and play like we can, we shouldn’t have any trouble.“If we stay healthy and everyone plays the way they are capable of, we won’t have any trouble having a successful season.”

There are 19 players on the roster, including nine freshmen.

“The great thing with having that many players I’ve got two that can play short, I’ve got two third basemen, and we’ve not had that in the past so that is luxury we’re going to have this year and we hope to use it,” Gross said. “There has been open competition since we started. The girls are aware of it, and they’ve fed into it, and it’s been fun because they’ve been working hard and they’ve all gotten better since we started. We are a young group, but we are a very talented young group, and I expect them to hit the ball as we get used to varsity pitching.”